Patterns In The Darkness
by Aine Deande
Summary: Lord Voldemort trained his most faithful servant, Bellatrix Black, in the Dark Arts... but not without design, and never without price. First part in the Blood Tales series. WIP, Voldemort POV. Chapter 2 up!
1. Darkness Come

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Blood Tales

-- By Aine Déande

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I. Patterns in the Darkness

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I.1. DARKNESS COME

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The first time, I took her virginal blood.

She tasted of ashes, and raspberries; she reminded of hisses and cheers. She shook in rhythm to my thrusts; her tongue tracing silken strokes down my throat and jawline. Her eyes, for once, forfeited and still; though her hands trembled. 

Her nails clawed into my back as I bit down into the sheets. Not that I could not have bitten her neck, instead, for I had both right and claim, however I did not yet wish to see my Bella maimed, in whichever way. For the craving overtaking my body at the sight of hers had been a frightening, unfamiliar emotion; coaxing me ahead, even there where I had not dared go in the past. 

I had been predator, I had been beast... I had been savage where I had wanted to be tender. To earn trust in the one who would be chained only by her own covetings, if not her own demands. To realise her covetings were a reflection of my private ones shook me open, loosened me in coming breath, and I took her as brutally as a mating between animals in heat. 

I was ashamed of myself, and yet when she shivered as I plunged ahead I had wanted to bite her neck. I had wanted to leave a mark of my possession, one more damning than any Dark link ever could. It was a terrifying concept, one that I did not wish to face, and so I did not challenge myself by leaving visible evidence of my lust on her ridden form.

Her blood, when I licked it from the inside of her thighs, kissing her down, had tasted of sunburn and mist. The sound of a bell chiming had started resonating in my head when she fell asleep in my arms afterwards, and I lay awake that night, listening to the bells reminding me of my childhood (though some, of forked tongue, might say I never had one) and the orphanage's standard Sunday visitations to the local church.

To worship a God that I would one day place beneath me was nearly as humiliating as the experience of my wrath on Bella's body: the passion overriding me, the undercurrent of torrid emotion that had wrenched from me my calm and sent me winding down, or up in a sort of vertigo fashion, into the threshold of her womb.

It had been a moment of such _loss_, of such tranquil destruction, as to make any lesser man a religious one. As it was, I bathed through the night with my eyes closed and my mind open. Bella slept restfully atop my chest.

But let us begin from whence time gives understanding of our circumstances. There is no true beginning in a life the nature of mine or Bella's, but our collective memory provides me with the perfect opening: her introduction. 

For that is where it all started, is it not? First her introduction to the Circle; to me. Then, her introduction to the Dark Arts, though a certain time collapse as well as a change in _surroundings_ was required to go from one to the other. 

I arranged her coming of self, as well as if I'd written the history of her life: I could not have created her better if she had been my Eve... though as she could well have been formed from my rib, and it would not do to have me reduced to the character of Adam, I should perhaps look for a more appurtenant analogy.

But let us not get ahead of the facts. It began at Riddle Manor, my favoured house of tainted irony; in the year that Bella turned eleven.


	2. Darkness Spun

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I.2. DARKNESS SPUN

It was, of course, the mother who brought her to my attention. The eldest of the three children, Bellatrix Black was presented to me at the first opportune moment, which turned out to be her eleventh birthday. 

All future followers of the Dark Lord were to meet with their destined master upon entering school. This was to eradicate any allusions to escaping their determined lives, or thinking they would be offered a legitimate choice in their new, treacherous surroundings. Their first, and therefor most important impression would be of me. 

Whether they be sent to Hogwarts, Durmstrang, Beauxbatons or another wizarding school didn't matter: influence of the Light would be all around, tempting them with the mirage of a better life; distinguishing sin from good deeds, villains from heroes. Out of fear of being labelled an outsider, due to raging rebellion against their kin as adolescents are bound to do at one point or other, or perhaps even because of genuine persuasion, these children would each be susceptible to the tangles of the Light. 

To prevent this, and all attempts to follow, all children of Dark families were to be brought before me and, surrounded by my all but tangible power, they would be sedated in their fears, seduced, and secured in their position as future Death Eaters.

She kneeled in front of my high chair in the reverent fashion she'd maintain for all the years to come: one knee down, body bending, second knee following as the other leg stretched beneath her, her back straight and tight as a bowstring as she bowed first her head, then her neck to the hem of my robe. The half-smile to follow in the subsequent years was not present on her face, as she had no knowledge yet of her prospective standing. 

She did not, however, lower her eyes as she kissed my robes. Instead, she kept them focused on my face, still pleasing to the eye in the day. It was those eyes which led me to remember the eleven-year old girl at the next meeting, planning in advance the overtaking of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, followed by the demise of Albus Dumbledore. We could move in through the children: Recruitment was the key, as an attack from within would fail to be detected even by the almighty Headmaster. 

I thought of the child then. Inky-haired, unformed, springy of stature and lazy of stance. Her mouth was lush as a woman's, yet the eyes had stayed with me as she had been the only person in over ten years to look me so boldly in the eye. Fleeting of look, dark of topaz, her level gaze belied a smouldering whole. Something within me had stirred at that look, reacting to a magic she possessed of which I had no learning.

Not that this state of facts would remain so in prolonged fashion: the minute she had passed through the portal, I requested of my servants a volume on the nature and origins of Vision Magic. It seemed the little Black girl had an unforeseen gift: not that of Foresight, but Sight itself. Perception in its most raw and magical form. 

An opportunity presented itself here... but little Bella would not make things easy for me.

She was a quiet one. Hardly spoke. Only looked... eyes registering, flat as marbles. She noticed _everything._ The way an Auror's hand would tremble slightly as he lied to my interrogators, or a muscle in his jaw twitching. The scent of semen on one of my followers going a little far in his interrogation' techniques, which I noticed from the way her nose would crinkle. I could use that quality.

But she was _too _quiet. She didn't speak, even to me. Something, or someone, had taken her voice from her, had turned her inward into herself as the metaphorical safe place where she could not be harmed. Even I, with all my Legimency skills, could not reach her there. The flatness of her eyes prevented intrusion. 

I had no choice but to resort to drastic measures. The price for disobedience is high on any Death Eater, but on the Dark Lord's protégé it was nigh unacceptable. Her lack of speech was impertinent. Her refusal to share with me her considerable talents, inexcusable.

Then there was her mother, who deliberately protected her from me. Though an, in her own mind at least, faithful follower to her Lord, she nevertheless placed the value of her daughter's youthful innocence above my wishes with her. The danger of a mother's love... Though I would one day be destroyed by such a power, and had not foreseen its implications at that time, I did know that Cassiopeia Black's protective nature would prove a disadvantage to the further education of the child. The pitiful woman's first loyalty was to the fruit of her womb and not to me.

This, naturally, would never do. The Black woman had served her purpose and what uses she had had — a fertile womb and a heart silent as a tomb no doubt among the more beneficial to my cause — were no longer of any importance to me. 

Her life brought me no benefit... nothing, at least, compared to what her death would accomplish. Moreover, what her death would bring out in the dark-eyed princess I had inadvertently chosen as my ward the moment I saw her.

As I said, to leave the care of my then-selected protégé in the arms of her family's stronghold would be the wrongful path. Her mother wished not to hand her to me at such an early age, inexperienced and awkward, although surely thinking this to be my wish and the logical order of command. She would be shielded, Bellatrix mine, harvested and made putrid by her family's home — who had their own agenda, one I allowed only so long as their serving me fitted my intents — until such time arrived when she would be brought before me, as a willing servant no doubt. 

But no longer young and impressionable, yet this indeed was the Bella I needed. A _belle femme fatale_, she would become, under my explicit guidance, both beautiful and destructive. The forbidden fruit: Snow-White's apple, sumptuous red yet poisonous at the core. Enticing yet merciless. But mine to all ends, to shape and mould, and mine to hold in an iron grasp of combined charm and Dark Magic.

If I would attempt to explain this to the mother — or take the child to me by force, as led in my power — I would lose whatever mastery I might have held over poor Bellatrix' head. Even to the eye of a man who is stranger to love, I could see the bond forged between mother and daughter. Only when her eyes set upon the woman who gave life to her bosom did Bella's eyes flicker, as though a door was opened in the chambers to her eyes that made the fire, before immobile, stir and rekindle. And Cassiopeia was so obvious in showing the affection in which she held her child, it was nearly sickening. 

To separate the two by obvious means would be to destroy the child and any means to gain her, I saw that clearly. But there were other ways.

The plan came to me in shades of laughter and a whiff of drink. I had been resting comfortably composed at the windowsill, watching over the happenings at a nearby tavern. I had some things to acquire and faced with little trust in my followers' greed, I decided to fetch the matters of personal interest myself. 

There would be absolutely no danger to me... I was nigh unattainable, teeming with power, and not yet a known figure of impending terror and doom. In fact, no one had connected as of yet the green-lit skull to appear above areas of preceding attacks on Mudbloods and Muggles, to the occasional malefactor they threw into Azkaban who all bore resembling tattoos on their inner arm.

In any case, I was inspired by the laughter. As a sound trifling and unattractive to me, it nevertheless brought to mind an idea of specific splendour. To get rid of Cassiopeia by my own forces would bestow upon smart Bellatrix the weight of both sorrow and betrayal by the symbol of the man she had been raised to revere. To avert a personal quest of vengeance leading her straight to my lair, I saw to it instead that the prevalent authorities would have the honour of annihilating the child's mother.

I waited three years. The execution of my plan had to be meticulous and untraceable. First, I began planting seeds of suspicion toward the House of Black, moving up from gossip among the plebeians to accusations made at the Higher Court. 

Then, I started placing evidence of supposed illegitimate business at, globally, corporations and, individually, associates with publicly familiar ties to the Black family. One by one these people were captured under false pretences, these companies shut down with no sign of foul play. 

And everywhere, anywise, fingers pointed at the House of Black; everywhere, data and indications connecting with the erroneous associations would come forth. Past mishaps of the pureblooded lineage were investigated: their every deposit checked, their every exchange whether in form or in person scrutinised and dissected. In the end the Blacks barely had a leg to stand on any longer, let alone a reputation.

It was then that I struck my masterstroke. I had given lead to the general assumption that the family was corrupt by sending an anonymous letter to the Ministry of Magic as well as a separate one to the Auror Department. 

This letter contained pictures (faked, naturally) of the Black's wine cellar (the House crest penetrated into the walls) and a hidden passage (which Cassiopeia had revealed to me at my insistence, as I casually questioned her on where she kept my various gifts') leading to what could very well be a treasure of stolen wealth. 

Mislead but docile as little dogs, the Aurors went straight for the kill. I made sure Bellatrix wasn't home the day of the raid, nor were her sisters: they were all staying at Cassiopeia's sister, aunt to Bellatrix and mother to that treacherous filth, Sirius Black, though he hadn't turned coat at present time. 

As it were, Cassiopeia's pride could not cope against the invasion her ancestors' home and the desecration of the family's honour: she threw herself upon an Auror's wand, aiming herself in front of a nasty hex that, though not deadly in nature, due to the poor condition of her heart finished her off quite neatly.

I was at the funeral, as were all my Death Eaters and a fair share of public figures, who in the eyes of society could not possibly let the Black House down in times of grief, even if they whispered behind their backs and wouldn't invite them to private gatherings any longer. 

The rejection was carved deeply into the faces of the other Black kin: Bellatrix' aunt clasped her hand down on her youngest with such force as to make the child flinch, and young Sirius' mouth was so tightly bound as though he'd sewn it shut with a needle and thread.

Bella's eyes were red-rimmed as she bent over her dead mother's body, back rigid, lids shut tightly over her eyes. No doubt her lips were warm against her mother's; no doubt her hands were clenched into fists in the pockets of her robes. 

No doubt her tears were kept quickly and determinedly behind the closed doors of her level gaze.

And this is where my plan regarding Bella's education was finally set in motion.


	3. Darkness Done

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I.3. DARKNESS DONE

She was fourteen now. Her eyes told me the story as though she were speaking the words. 

She stood by one of the many windows in my great recipient hall, still and broken as though carved out of glass splinters. Her hand was clenched around her other arm, which she held close to her chest. as though protecting an inner flame from dying out. Watching her made my blood run cold and my tongue sneak out to meet the centre of my upper lip.

My sluggish servants, observant of her even under my ordinance to never behold the girl when she isn't in my presence, tell me of her nights and hides. 

"She shivers in her sleep, Master. Her mouth is a straight line. She doesn't seem to know where home is."

I listen in my high chair, composed and compelled.

Two weeks since the death of her mother and she has been under my care. Her family had not protested much when the Dark Lord called upon them for Cassiopeia's eldest daughter; they had most likely suspected a more pressing interest on my part long before the mother Black's eyes had been opened to it, and too late for her in any case.

Her sister Narcissa had sobbed in a corner sheet of her robes, and had not wanted to hold Bellatrix for what would be her last opportunity for over four years. Bellatrix said nothing, requested nothing, only held her sister's eyes bound to her own in a silent promise, one that I did not embark on. I permitted my little child some secrets, even if over time she would have to relinquish them all to me. In no time at all the flaxen girl stepped back and was silent, only the occasional sob escaping her throat.

Bellatrix only briefly stepped into little Andromeda's hug. Only eleven years of age and by the far the most impressionable of the sisters, she cried in earnest as though parting from a most beloved toy. Bellatrix' eyes were only a degree off freezing point as she looked upon her sister; clearly, she did not appreciate such an open display of affection before her. My fascination with her grew and grew. 

Then she had turned and stepped to my side, looking neither back nor forward. Her eyes were fixed resolutely on the object in her hands: a snowglobe, presented to her by Narcissa. A tear flowed to the side of her eye and vanished in a wink.

I heard my servants' reports of her behaviour, watched my soon-to-be ward from the corner of my eye as she sat by the window and continued her silence, and said nothing. But my mind was astir. She had had her moment's peace, and my plans called for execution. Even though she may try and hide it, her mind was presently in a state which allowed for me to mould it, and I could not let escape this opportunity.

The amount of days passed in my care was exactly equal to the amount of years she had bestowed upon the earth her life. I felt a rebirth was in order.

I stepped to her side from behind her, all the while letting my advances upon her be heard in the echoes of the resounding room. Other than a renewed vigour in her stillness, there was no noticeable acknowledgement of my progression. I cared not.

I folded my body neatly around hers, imitating the warmth of a mother's womb in doing so. She would never dare pull away. My hand found hers and slipped into it, a tiny scrap of parchment. Not moving another inch of her form, she raised it to her face and read it carefully. 

Her eyelashes fluttered briefly, and I stepped out of the mockery of an embrace that I had unwillingly coerced out of her. My hand still felt cold from where I had touched her.

She turned to me, standing away from the window, her topaz eyes expressionless. The parchment note was in her hand, just barely holding on. The briefest of winds would have blown her over.

"A promise?" Her voice was but a breath of falling leaves.

"On paper." I had promised her the avengement of her mother's murderers, with my help. I would train her in the Dark Arts so that one day, she might act as a goddess of vengeance, and take upon her target list their deaths as her own accomplishment, if brought about by my conduct. 

Refusal was inadmissible, but it was a nice show to put on nevertheless. She must have known of this, though her eyes told me nothing yet.

Her body did a half-curve as her eyes looked to the parchment again, and a portion of bare neck was exposed to me. "Carved in stone..." Still, her voice carried little weight, but I could hear the slightest tone of consideration. I pounced on the chance.

"My word to your mouth and back again." Surely the promise of the Dark Lord would secure her in her doubts? But I had miscalculated this young girl's pride; had momentarily forgotten her background, her Black blood, running through her as iced fire. A liquid destruction, and I had not foreseen. 

"Ah." Short, noted, considered and discarded. Her hand crushed the paper in her fist.

"I work alone." She started to walk away, but my soft voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Please don't." The effect of my words was not lost on Bellatrix. She instantly turned on her heel to face me, an incredulous look on her features.

"Please, from _you_?" She asked the question mockingly, yet I did not scold her. She had not walked away. 

I allowed myself to perform upon my then aristocratic face a hint of something akin to a smile, hereby confusing her even more, and ploughed on. Her perception was keen, but she had no skill at manipulation... and I had plenty between the two of us.

"You perceive pleas and apologies as nothing more than weakness." I brought level to my eyes the fingers of my hands and stapled them together, keeping my gaze upon little Bella. A raised eyebrow, the hint of a smile again. "You have no idea yet of how effectual selective forgiveness can be."

I could see how she was trying to figure me out, perhaps even to imitate in a way the insinuations at kind behaviour that I was exhibiting. She would be an eager student, I knew. But all wasn't done yet.

I had her full attention now. Her hand still curled around my written promise, she used her other hand to fling her hair back from her face, and looked me straight in the eye, much as on the day we had met. The grief in them felt too near to my skin; I had to take a step back from her, and she instantly perceived my blatant pretence at compassion. Her eyes hardened; approvingly, I looked on as she prepared herself for a battle of the wits. 

"You have need of me." Ah, the brow raised was a superb touch, just disdainfully enough. But her eyes were too cold yet.

"I do." Obliging of an answer, leaving room for elaboration. But she knew better than to follow up her previous triumph with another query.

Adopting a manner of insouciant relaxation, as though entering a comfortable area of conversation instead of a mental battlefield, she began stepping across the room in not exactly a pace but on the move nevertheless. I followed in her footsteps, a perfect mockery of submission, when it was really I pulling all the strings.

"So this is why you parted me from my remaining relatives... so that you could train me?"

"Indeed, yes." I was still a few steps behind her and beheld her face from the side. Empty of expression: good. The eyes to intrigue me so still of undercurrent. But I knew her rational, inquisitive mind had to be working overtime beneath that calm façade, and I welcomed it. This was the mind after all that I had sought to own... almost from the beginning.

I looked ahead, deliberating prolonging a return to view of her face. "Indeed it was imperative that you be trained under me. All Death Eaters seek this privilege, only few are ever granted the very distinct honour of studying under me the perfected practice of the Dark Arts." 

I waited a beat, then: "They are, also, taken from their families by time of birth. So you were fortunate in this regard, as your mother did not present you to me until your eleventh birthday. 

"I of course would not have wished to take you from your kin so young and... green..." Bellatrix' right hand clenched around the parchment again. Ah, but she gave away emotion too explicitly. I would have to work on that first and foremost. A house of ice for my followers, but not glass.

"I had seen your potential upon your first visit to me. You will be a fine student, Bella... and now, no longer bound to your family's wishes of a life for you. In a manner of speaking you could well call me your rescuer... though, naturally, you shall have to marry sooner or later. Preferably later, however." She was red-hot now, scorching coals underneath her feet and fire in my belly as the air gathered us close.

"So my mother's death was... convenient to you, then?" A hardening in her complexion gave away the warning sign. I had no obligation to lie in order to spare her feelings, besides of which I had no wish to begin with. I answered simply.

"Yes."

In a glorious fury (or furious glory, if you prefer, as both would suit my darling), she turned on me, and in a rush of Legimency-induced insight I perceived in a flash of blackened fire her pain, her discomposure, her grief, and her all-encompassing taste for revenge. Open soar was what I called her then: a child of ruin, making free flight.

"What was my mother then, huh?" She flung the by now useless note to my face, missing me by inches in her by anger affected aim. "Well? A necessary sacrifice? Blood to the cause? Her womb _gave_ me to you —"

"No, _I_ gave you to me." Authority now. No one, not even this girl-woman consumed with grief, can speak to me in such a manner. "You are my choice and my creation."

Her hands, thrown up in defenceless defeat, were caught in my hands. It is all the same from here. Consolation, now. I lowered my voice to a nigh tender whisper, and her breath stilled audibly in her throat. Comfort, now, or the illusion of. Can a child tell the difference? She was perceptive beyond her years, but young yet.

"Tell me something, Bella: If, right now, you could wish for something — anything — and you would receive it, what would it be?"

Her answer was immediate and well anticipated. "My mother's murderers dead at my fingertips," she said, licking her lips at the thought with a quick, serpentine tongue.

I smiled then, and she knew she had been caught in a web of reasoning she could no longer escape. We had, after all, never forfeited our wordplay, only suspended it for awhile. I held her gaze to mine.

"Oh? So you would not wish your mother back, safe and sound? Or to be back with your left family that I so cruelly parted you from? Or perhaps even to be as powerful as I, so you could defeat all your present demons yourself?"

She flinched, closed her eyes, and I forced her chin up with my index finger to return her eyes to me. I could look into her so well in this present state of mind, I could not forego the consequence as of yet. And there was still more to say.

"Such haste, my dear. While calculation is the key element in this matter, if you seek success." 

She had to understand... she was being taught, even now, by myself how to work your favour into that of another. The key to conquest is to have both parties be satisfied with the end result, even if this result in question was directed into existence from point go, and so were the other party's interests. Calculation, and observance, were your ideal comrades. She had to learn. And so I say.

"Bellatrix, all your life consists of for this time is revenge. Are you aware of the inherent sadness in this? No —" I held my hand up as she began to protest, "I know you don't consider it so. But don't you realise the inherent effectiveness of the longer approach, when both lead to the required result, and yet you would gain so much more from the guided road? _My_ guidance." 

I stressed the possessive pronoun as to proclaim a very real sense of possession in her, as to not give her the wrongful presumption of choice. She did not object again.

Closure, now. My fingers wrapped around her hand, my eyes lowered to her level.

"You are more, much more, than your revenge, Bella."

Her anger rises like a tempest and subsides... reluctantly. That first time of abandon was little different in execution, however quickly she regained control of her emotion and brought down her eyes from mine.

Her tone of voice softer, she addressed me with her eyes cast down. "What else am I?"

I smiled, though she could not see it. "My follower, for one. My most faithful, I hope to say one day."

At this, she laughed, but I could hear an undertone of disdain through the clear bells of her amusement. Indeed, her next words confirmed this. "You hope, you wish, you dream..." Her eyes were once more upon me, though questioning now rather than accusative, as they had been during her tirade. 

I chuckled to compensate for her burst of laughter, whilst also introducing a note of reproach through my chuckling. "And what is wrong with that? As long as there is the will behind all these wishes to make them come true. The strength beneath the sunset, sort to speak." 

My timing was just the right mix of elegance and self-mockery in my language that she could not discern the reasoning behind it, and so she laughed again instead. To find herself in the presence of the Dark Lord, showing an altogether undiscovered side to himself, was clearly puzzling her. She was more careful in her phrasing and actions... learning ahead of my agenda the proper forms of conduct. All well, all good.

"You talk in metaphors." Imploring eyes, uptilted lips and a questioning brow.

"I talk to you the way in which my perception tells me the message may be heard." I spoke firmly, once again establishing authority. Then I took the self-invoked liberty of taking her chin into my hand to raise her face up to mine. "Was it?"

A nod dutiful of nature. "Yes, Master."

I released her chin, but not her eyes. "Repeat it for me."

"I am to be instructed by you in the Dark Arts." She missed not a beat. The lesson was learned.

"Good, my child." I had succeeded. My elation was of short duration and kept on a tight leash, for it should not matter any more than upon reaching a desired stage in my planning. Indeed all I allowed for was self-congratulation on a job well done.

But I indulged in the closeness of her nevertheless, for she had proven a most worthy verbal sparring partner. After the last syllable had ridden the current of echoes, I took her by her shoulders, bent to her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

At fourteen she was Bellatrix mine, an intoxicating promise of a queen. She would just become a goddess of vengeance; and ever under my command. I smiled to myself. 

To new horizons, and a promise of tomorrow. 


End file.
